\n<\/p>\n
A hunger for vengeance. A lack of restraints. A fixation on interior decorating and a drive to leave lasting marks on his office.<\/p>\n
That is the portrait of President Trump in his second term that emerges from \u201cRegime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,\u201d a new book by two New York Times reporters, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.<\/p>\n
The 464-page book, set to be released on Tuesday, describes Mr. Trump\u2019s relentless, norm-shattering efforts to bend the federal government, cultural institutions and news cycles to his will. It draws on extensive interviews conducted on the condition of anonymity to recount internal discussions and sensitive issues. Throughout the reporting process, the authors write, they made extensive efforts to contact the people named in the book and to give them ample opportunity to offer their perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegime Change\u201d describes the \u201cmost powerful president of our lifetimes\u201d \u2014 a leader operating on \u201cgrievances and instincts\u201d who could be found, on at least one occasion, decorating the White House with a tube of super glue.<\/p>\n
Here are 11 takeaways from the book.<\/p>\n
After Mr. Trump won the 2024 election, the book says, he reveled in the ways that tech leaders who had once scorned him were now \u201ckissing my ass.\u201d<\/p>\n
He especially enjoyed the outreach from Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, who had barred Mr. Trump from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n
At Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump would tell visitors about texts he had received from the titans of tech companies, the book says. In one instance, he showed guests a photo of a letter from one of Mr. Zuckerberg\u2019s children, who had written that they eagerly awaited \u201cthe golden age of America\u201d arriving with Mr. Trump\u2019s return, according to the book. In another, he showed a text from Jeff Bezos with a smiling selfie of the Amazon founder and Lauren S\u00e1nchez, now his wife.<\/p>\n
At a dinner after the 2024 election, Mr. Trump and Mr. Bezos commiserated, according to the book, over a source of shared frustration: The Washington Post, Mr. Bezos\u2019s newspaper, whose coverage had long irritated Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n
Mr. Bezos, who bought The Post in 2013, complained that the newspaper had been his worst investment, the book says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people there are terrible,\u201d Mr. Bezos said of the news organization\u2019s business side, according to the book. \u201cThey don\u2019t listen. My other companies, they listen.\u201d<\/p>\n
At another point, Mr. Trump seemed to marvel at his new reception in the tech world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hated me,\u201d he told Elon Musk, referring to Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Bezos, the book recounts. He added, \u201cAnd look at them now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst-class groveling,\u201d Mr. Musk said, according to the book.<\/p>\n
Last summer, top administration officials gathered in the White House Situation Room for a series of meetings as they worked to respond to disclosures about the president\u2019s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein \u2014 and to respond to a push in Congress to force the administration to release materials related to the convicted sex offender.<\/p>\n
In those meetings, according to the book, officials argued about how much the issue was resonating with Mr. Trump\u2019s supporters. At one point, there was talk of dispatching Vice President JD Vance or Todd Blanche, a top Justice Department official, to Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast to discuss the issue, according to the book.<\/p>\n
At another, they fretted about an uncorroborated accusation against Mr. Trump that had surfaced in unsealed court filings from a decade-old defamation case that Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Mr. Epstein, brought against Mr. Epstein\u2019s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/p>\n
In the filings, another Epstein accuser, Sarah Ransome, claimed she knew a girl who said that she had sex with Mr. Trump and that he had a nipple fetish, according to the book. Ms. Ransome had later retracted some of her claims, and her accusation about Mr. Trump had been made public before he returned to office.<\/p>\n
But officials worried that including it in a government database would make it seem more credible, the book says.<\/p>\n
The Situation Room is a complex typically reserved for meetings on high-stakes national security matters. One official, the book says, would later say it was a \u201csurreal\u201d experience to be sitting in the complex \u201cdiscussing Donald Trump and abused nipples.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump likes to poll allies on whether they prefer his vice president, Mr. Vance, or his secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Both men are seen as potential 2028 presidential candidates and heirs to his political movement.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s questioning, the book says, has reached Rupert Murdoch, the nonagenarian media tycoon who owns Fox News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n
At an amicable dinner at the White House in October, Mr. Trump \u2014 who had filed a defamation lawsuit against The Journal after it reported that he had sent a lewd birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein decades ago \u2014 asked Mr. Murdoch whether he liked Mr. Vance or Mr. Rubio better, according to the book.<\/p>\n
The question was particularly loaded because of the presence of two men at the table: Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio themselves.<\/p>\n
Mr. Murdoch took a diplomatic approach, the book recounts, but his preference was clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think JD has the potential to be great,\u201d replied Mr. Murdoch, who had reportedly tried to talk Mr. Trump out of picking Mr. Vance as his running mate in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what do you think of Marco?\u201d the president pressed.<\/p>\n
Mr. Murdoch was more forceful this time, according to the book. \u201cMarco is brilliant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When Mr. Trump returned to the White House, he was consumed by a sometimes distracting desire for retribution.<\/p>\n
One afternoon in the spring of 2025, Mr. Trump was straining to recall \u201cthis lawyer\u201d in the first Trump administration who he thought had said the 2020 election \u201cwas fair and there\u2019s no fraud,\u201d according to the book.<\/p>\n
A top adviser, Stephen Miller, who gained a reputation as Mr. Trump\u2019s keeper of grievances, suggested that Mr. Trump might be referring to a homeland security official.<\/p>\n
Boris Epshteyn, one of the president\u2019s private lawyers, did a quick search on his phone, the book says, and offered an answer: \u201cChris Krebs,\u201d who had led a division of the Homeland Security Department during Mr. Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, Chris Krebs,\u201d Mr. Trump replied, according to the book. \u201cWhatever happened to him? He was a bad one. Take a look at him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Days later, the White House issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Krebs.<\/p>\n
Concerns about corruption have trailed Mr. Trump\u2019s second term, including over his cryptocurrency, his family\u2019s real estate deals and his acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar.<\/p>\n
Foreign investors, the book says, have seen a \u201cmore straightforward path to influence, putting money directly into the pockets of the Trump family through their crypto ventures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump family didn\u2019t cash in only through cryptocurrency, though.<\/p>\n
His sons Eric and Don Jr. quickly secured lucrative deals, including Eric\u2019s free-of-charge acquisition of a plot, valued at $67 million and attached to a college in Miami, for the creation of Mr. Trump\u2019s presidential library, the book says.<\/p>\n
Howard Lutnick, the president\u2019s commerce secretary, said he would donate $25 million to the library fund, according to the book, a highly unusual move for a sitting member of a cabinet.<\/p>\n
In an interview that Ms. Haberman and Mr. Swan conducted with Mr. Trump for the book, the president, who had started the war with Iran two weeks earlier, reflected on his power.<\/p>\n
The president listed a series of powerful figures from history, drawn from a two-page document that an acquaintance had given him, and then explained why he thought their power paled in comparison to his, since they lacked global reach.<\/p>\n
Rattling off names including Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror, the president noted, \u201cThey didn\u2019t have airplanes,\u201d according to the book.<\/p>\n
He continued, reciting more names: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Stalin. Those leaders, Mr. Trump told the authors, \u201cmaintained power through fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho would ever do a thing like that?\u201d Mr. Trump asked, according to the book. \u201cRight?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Miller was a prominent face of Mr. Trump\u2019s first administration and its crackdown on immigration. But still in his early 30s then, Mr. Miller could be \u201ceasily dismissed\u201d by Mr. Trump\u2019s military leaders, the book says.<\/p>\n
By the second term, that had changed.<\/p>\n
Holding titles that undersold his true power (deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser), the meticulous and domineering Mr. Miller amassed enormous influence, the book says.<\/p>\n
His portfolio covered most of the federal government, according to the book, as he oversaw executive orders, recruited the lawyers who wrote them and drove the Homeland Security Department\u2019s mass deportation effort, pushing for the deployment of U.S. troops in American cities.<\/p>\n
Along the way, he regularly berated staff members. Demanding in one meeting that the speed of deportation accelerate, Mr. Miller angrily threatened to fire the entirety of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one senior administration official recalls in the book.<\/p>\n
The book says Mr. Miller often presented his views as representing requests from the president, even as he remained cautious about expressing his opinions in Mr. Trump\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n
After the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, Mr. Trump heard about it from a young fan of Mr. Kirk\u2019s: the president\u2019s 19-year-old son.<\/p>\n
Barron Trump called Mr. Trump in a state of panic, according to the book.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s son worried that his father, who was grazed in the ear by a would-be assassin\u2019s bullet in 2024, would be targeted again. He told the president he was taking a risk by speaking in front of crowds, according to the book.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump tried to soothe his son.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalm down, honey, calm down,\u201d the president said, according to the book. But, it says, he was plainly unnerved himself.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump has long been seen by critics and supporters alike as a master of media manipulation \u2014 someone who changes what\u2019s in the news when he feels it does not suit him.<\/p>\n
In one account from the book, Mr. Trump seemed to nod at the method.<\/p>\n
When Pete Hegseth\u2019s nomination as defense secretary appeared at risk of being derailed by a sexual assault allegation that Mr. Hegseth denied, Mr. Trump considered giving up and replacing him with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a former rival.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need plot twists,\u201d Mr. Trump told a surprised ally, the book says.<\/p>\n
Instead, Mr. Trump \u201cunleashed\u201d Mr. Vance, Mr. Kirk and one of his sons, Don Jr., to pressure any Republicans who were considering rejecting Mr. Hegseth, the book says.<\/p>\n
After the United States bombed a deeply buried nuclear enrichment site in Iran in June 2025, Mr. Trump delivered a celebratory speech, declaring falsely that the operation had \u201ccompletely and totally obliterated\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n
But as Mr. Trump had prepared the speech, Mr. Vance proposed that the president tone down some of the language. \u201cI know what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Mr. Trump replied sharply, according to the book.<\/p>\n
The next morning, the book says, Mr. Vance appeared in an interview on ABC News. He did not repeat the words \u201ctotally obliterated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump was not happy, according to the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone needs to say\u201d the word obliterated, Mr. Trump said, adding an expletive, according to the book. \u201cThat\u2019s the word. Everyone just needs to copy what I say. Obliterated. Obliterated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of Mr. Trump\u2019s construction projects in Washington \u2014 a ballroom replacing the East Wing of the White House, a 250-foot triumphal arch by the Potomac River \u2014 are multimillion-dollar affairs, requiring workers in hard hats and towering cranes.<\/p>\n
But one morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, entered the Oval Office to find Mr. Trump personally making changes in d\u00e9cor.<\/p>\n
The president had a tube of super glue in his hand, the book says, and was trying to adorn the marble fireplace mantel with new golden decorations.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs he was known to prefer his own aesthetic handiwork to anyone else\u2019s,\u201d the authors write, \u201cthe sight of the president squeezing glue onto gilded appliqu\u00e9s and mounting them on the wall himself surprised no one in his inner circle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A hunger for vengeance. A lack of restraints. A fixation on interior decorating and a drive to leave lasting marks on his office. That is the portrait of President Trump in his second term that emerges from \u201cRegime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,\u201d a new book by two New York Times reporters,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1980,270,24802,671,7280,13916,7473,14302,1395,71,2168],"class_list":{"0":"post-50473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-book","9":"tag-change","10":"tag-haberman","11":"tag-house","12":"tag-jonathan","13":"tag-maggie","14":"tag-regime","15":"tag-swans","16":"tag-takeaways","17":"tag-trumps","18":"tag-white"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}